Rather than relying on symbolic gestures or decoration, Stanton Williams sought to express a sense of belonging in the first girls’ boarding houses at Winchester College through the experience of inhabiting the buildings: their scale, sequence of spaces and rhythms of everyday life. Openness and visual connections shape the daily experience of the boarding houses. Each is organised around a central courtyard that forms its social heart.
The massing is carefully broken down to respond to the grain and scale of neighbouring buildings, while accommodating density and a substantial programme on a constrained site. This approach extends into the landscape, where gardens, courtyards and paths are woven around the buildings to embed them within their setting. In doing so, they create moments of arrival, encounter and retreat along the routes between the boarding houses and the wider College.
First boarding houses for girls at Winchester College by Stanton Williams. Photograph by Jack Hobhouse.
The sequence of courtyard, cloister and shared spaces creates two boarding houses that feel both intimate and connected. The girls encounter one another naturally as they move through the buildings, returning throughout the day to study, eat, practise music or simply spend time together. From the cloister, staircases lead to clusters of single and twin bedrooms, creating smaller communities within each house.
An internal cloister connects the living room, library, communal kitchens, and music and activity rooms to the dining hall pavilion situated between the two boarding houses. A movable partition allows the pavilion to function as two separate dining spaces or to open up and bring both communities together, reinforcing the connection between the two houses.
First boarding houses for girls at Winchester College by Stanton Williams. Photograph by Jack Hobhouse.
Brick is the primary material, in keeping with the other Victorian boarding houses at Winchester College. Its treatment varies subtly across the different elevations in response to the context and the nature of the spaces they define. A variety of brick detailing is incorporated, including hit-and-miss brick screens that allow natural light to filter from the courtyards into the staircases. Oak is used for the entrance doors and internal spaces, bringing warmth, robustness and a sense of intimacy and permanence.
Pre-cast concrete elements, including lintels, copings, cills and string courses, provide further articulation and echo the tonality of the stone window dressings found across the College. Flint is incorporated into the garden walls, introducing texture and visual richness while reflecting a material characteristic of Winchester. The dining hall pavilion is clad in a copper-coloured metal veil, giving it a distinctive presence among the brick buildings.
First boarding houses for girls at Winchester College by Stanton Williams. Photograph by Jack Hobhouse.
"The site presented a real architectural challenge: accommodating two substantial boarding houses alongside existing listed structures and landscapes, while maintaining the character of the College. Careful massing allowed us to respond to the grain and scale of the surrounding buildings and create a richer sequence of courtyards, gardens and paths. That same attention to context continues down to the level of materials and detail. The result is a development that feels woven into its setting, from the scale of the site as a whole to the experience of moving through and inhabiting the buildings."
Kaori Ohsugi, Lead Architect at Stanton Williams.
